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In-Depth Series

How I Found Linux

Started by monsterb, this series invites people to share with us how they found Linux. It has become traditional for first time hosts to share with us their journey to Linux. Indeed it has morphed to be way to share your journey in tech right up to your first contribution to HPR.

From the early beginnings where I dabbled in Suse to the present day where I run my company on Linux, I tell you the story of how I got into Linux .. And how my wife’s 80 year old grandma got me into Linux permanently.

My first objective in making this show is to actually record a show, which is something I've never done.

My second objective was to say something interesting about why I use Linux, how I found it and why I think I keep using it.

I found Linux by word of mouth. It was a bit of a hassle to use back then and I wouldn't have stuck with it if the system didn't meet my needs better than everything else that was available to me. Cost was very important at first, but as time has gone by, it's been the tools and the usability of the system that have made me stay with it.

Despite their differences, Apple and Microsoft both try hard to be big, to have lots of users (buyers). They try to be everything to everyone. I think that happens with some Linux distributions too, but Linux is not one thing in the way that Windows is one thing. This means that at least some distributions can be less focused on keeping up with the latest, flashiest things. Linux just works for what I need it to do. I miss it when I'm not using it.

Most of the work I do besides household bookkeeping is programming for the web. The tools I use most often are: Vim, git, grep, Filezilla, the LAMP stack, Meteor, Firefox, Chromium. Many of these tools are afterthoughts in other systems, whereas they seem like native inhabitants in a Linux distribution.

I will apologize now for some of the rough sound. This was recorded on a very old Sony tape recorder (all I had at the time). Hopefully, the tape hiss will cover up some of my Kentucky accent. Or vice versa. Whatever. This is the saga of me. And Linux.

This story begins at the beginning of 2010. I was broke at the time so I was trying to find a free operating system. I needed something I could run on my PC’s at home. I had searched on the Internet, but found nothing useful for a long time. But one day I was at Barnes and Noble and I saw a magazine for Linux. (While I had heard of linux before I never thought of it as something I would ever be able to use.) When I asked people who I knew were computer professionals, I was told it was for people that were experts, and difficult to use. I never heard anything positive about it. I am so amazed that I hadn’t came across it sooner.

When I read the magazine I became exposed to Ubuntu 9.10. Karmic Koala. It sounded so good, as if it was exactly what I was looking for. As a result, I got very excited took it home, and to my surprise had such an easy time installing it to my PC that I decided to run it along with Windows XP as a dual boot system. All I did was put the live CD in the drive and the instructions were step by step you would have to be pretty slow to not get how to set things up.

Since then I have been very satisfied with Ubuntu in general and I have been able to check out later versions of it such as 10.04 (Maverick Meerkat) and 10.10 Lucid Lynx. I am looking forward to 11.04 Natty Narwhal for how it integrates multi-touch even more than 10.04. This experience just goes to show once again how I manage to find the coolest stuff by accident.

I will keep you posted on how I learn and grow with the different distros available so keep posted.

I went against my own recommendations from my previous episode
and used Rehearsal Assistant, because it can rename files inside the app.
Well, turns out it records at 8 kHz and encodes it as 3GPP.

Sound quality: Yes, it's at a terrible sample rate, but you can
hear what I'm saying and at least I'm Holding It Right.
There's no problem with sudden drops in
level.

Do as I say, don't do as I do. Use
Urecord,
which is obviously
pronounced you record as in telling someone to record something, not
you record! as in insulting someone by comparing them to a vinyl disc.
Don't say as I say.

Slirp can use either SLIP or
PPP. I think I used Slirp with SLIP, and there was some other connection
method that provided PPP directly without logging in and running a command.
Maybe their getty even understood the PPP blurb and just went directly to
pppd. Anyway, my Amiga-side software didn't support it. When I switched to
Linux I was able to use the other method and just talk PPP directly and
authorize using CHAP.

Debian didn't support Amiga
until Debian Hamm, which was released in 1998. So I didn't have much
choice but to run Watchtower and compile my own stuff. By 1998 the Amiga was
already gathering dust in my wardrobe back at my parents' place, while my PC
and I were preparing to travel the seas with the Swedish Royal Navy and
hang out (not really) with David Letterman on Saint Barths.

Wikipedia says that
yes, it was Bruce Perens who tried to get UserLinux going, but they claim
Ubuntu killed it. I don't remember UserLinux getting any traction at all. I
think it's more accurate to say that Ubuntu put the last nail in its coffin.
LWN seems to agree: The
immediate cause of death was an inability to deliver software. Today there
still is no real delivered product, over three months after the release of
Debian Sarge.

But the same article reveals that I was completely wrong about Bruce
trying to gather existing vendors together: It was occasionally
confused with UnitedLinux by people familiar with the Linux market.
UnitedLinux is the old Caldera, Conectiva, SUSE and Turbolinux
initiative. Yeah, I was thinking of the one with Turbolinux in it.
That name rings a bell. But I thought Turbolinux was Finnish. Apparently they
were Japanese. Or actually,
apparently they are Japanese.

I know that guix
is pronounced geeks. I just don't know it in my heart. Just
like I actually think GNU/Linux is the better descriptive term, but I keep
talking about the Linux ecosystem* etc, where 95% of that ecosystem is
abstracted away from Linux by glibc and runs just as well on
FreeBSD.

* Yes, you may hate the term ecosystem. I happen to think it's an
apt** analogy.

My third show, its my How I got into Linux show, Crunchbang for the win, thank you Corenominal.

I actually wrote some of this up before I recorded my first show. I wasn't happy that I did a good enough job originally. However I decided to make use of a rainy day and get it updated and recorded. I cut out a chunk of rambling about floppy drive cleaners, and stuck some more up to date info on the end.

Life and Times of a Geek - part 1

This show is being released on my 65th birthday, and I decided to use this opportunity to tell you about my long experience with computational devices as part of the series "How I Found Linux". Thinking about what I want to cover, I realise that it might be quite a lot, so I'm organising the shows into a collection of short episodes.

I have been thinking about doing this for a while. Up until now I was concerned that it would be a bit self-indulgent, but I have been advised to just go ahead and do it. I hope you find the shows interesting.

I have been an HPR listener for many years, and I really like the episodes on how people discovered and learn to use Linux. So this is my first HPR contribution. I recorded this on a Sansa Clip on a saturday afternoon. It's not heavily edited, but i did use audacity to remove a few errors I had made. Please excuse the uhhs and umms.

Kevie and Andrew release TuxJam episode thirty three and a third as an exclusive to HPR on how they got into Linux, interspersed with a few Creative Commons licensed tunes. The story begins in the mid-1990s and some credit is given to a Microsoft product. At no point do they put on terrible Irish accents and discuss the spelling of whisk(e)y*. If you like what you hear then you might like to listen to other TuxJam episodes here: http://unseenstudio.co.uk/category/tuxjam-ogg/* This may not be entirely true.

HPR Episode: How I Got Into Computers
1. Got into computers in 1974 in high school.
- School had a DEC PDP-11/20 minicomputer
* Two ASR-33 Teletype terminals, keypunch, line printer, card sorter
* Ran older operating system RSTS-11 v4a
- Too low-end to run anything more recent.
- 16K words of core memory: point-to-point wired "cores"
- The system was somewhat rudimentary. It's idea of a prompt was:
READY
- A Teletype terminal does not have a screen, so the print head
was the only "cursor" to let you know where you are.
Hardware:
PDP-11/20: Computer Museum
http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/minicomputers/11/366/1946
PDP-11/20: Retro Technology
http://www.retrotechnology.com/pdp11/exhibit/PDP_11_infoage_1.htm
ASR Model 33 Teletype with PDP-11 model computers
http://www.retrotechnology.com/pdp11/
Operating System:
RSTS-11 System Managers Guide
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp11/rsts/V04/DEC-11-ORSMA-B-D_RSTSmgr_73.pdf
RSTS-11 System Users Guide
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp11/rsts/V06/DEC-11-ORSUA-D-D_RSTS_SystemUserGuide_Jul75.pdf
2. Learned BASIC-Plus to get anywhere, starting with 1/2-year course
DEC BASIC Plus Language Manual
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp11/rsts/V04/DEC-11-ORBPA-A-D_BASIC-PLUS_LangMan_Oct72.pdf
* Course was taught by a math teacher who was not an amazing programmer,
but he was a great teacher. He enabled us to get going with BASIC.
* Anticipated pairs programming by working on programs with a friend as
"Chuck and Duck Enterprises", but we were mainly having fun.
- Started by necessity (1 TTY), but we got satisfying results faster
- Both of us could write code, but we learned about using
complementary strengths to get cool stuff done.
Pairs programming:
Pairs Programming, from XP
http://www.extremeprogramming.org/rules/pair.html
Laurie Williams (Her other stuff is good, too)
http://collaboration.csc.ncsu.edu/laurie/publications.html
* Small memory --> innovation
- ASCII Art "Poster" Program:
Create banner with block letters on LP based on terminal input.
- Developed a mini-language to encode characters, white space,
newlines for each supported character.
- This was a special-purpose language used to compress data, rather
than a cool Domain-Specific Language (DSL).
- We just wanted to make cool banners to come off the line printer.
Domain Specific Languages: Why ours wasn't a DSL
Martin Fowler on DSLs
http://martinfowler.com/tags/domain%20specific%20language.html
3. Did a math major in college, after switching away from Comp. Sci.
* Math had advantages for me
- More flexible curriculum
- Abstractions of the time were more fun to play with
* I used the University computers on jobs as research assistant, tutor, typist
- Used them in course work, too.
- Planning my code carefully let me use my excess CPU seconds for fun
- Rule of Thumb: 1 hour in library is worth 12 hours at the terminal.
4. Branching out in hardware, systems and programming languages
* We learned FORTRAN in the programming courses
- I resisted the temptation to "think in FORTRAN"
- More general approach felt slower for getting individual jobs done.
- Working from first principles seemed more reliable
- Often gave me better solutions than following my nose in FORTRAN
Quirky FORTRAN Preprocessor for Structured Programming (SF/K)
http://www.worldcat.org/title/fundamentals-of-structured-programming-using-fortran-with-sfk-and-watfiv-s/oclc/301094243
* Later, I picked up Pascal and TOPS-20 Assembly Language
Pascal: From the source
Pascal User Manual and Report (Springer) Trade paperback (1975)
by Kathleen Jensen, K Jensen, N Wirth
Trade paperback, Springer, 1975. English 2nd ed. 167 pages
ISBN: 0387901442 ISBN-13: 9780387901442
5. Gear and software rundown:
* Xerox/Honeywell Sigma Six (descended from Scientific Data Systems)
(1977 to 1979)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP-V_operating_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SDS_Sigma_series
* DEC System 2060 (relabeled PDP-10) running TOPS-20 on a 36-bit machine
(1979 to 1981)
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp10/TOPS20/DECnet-20/AA-5091B-TM_TOPS-20_DECnet-20_Programmers_Guide_Jan80.pdf
http://pdp10.nocrew.org/docs/ad-h391at1.pdf DECsystem-10 and -20 Processor Ref.
6. Summer and Night Job
* The Duration Caper:
Friend fixing a Fortran program to compute bond duration on a large portfolio.
- Answers weren't coming out, so he printed out several subtotals in his calculation.
- "Extend the line" to include the last term in the numerator of one big fraction "and you'll have it"
Found a typo in the Jack Clark Francis "bible" of investments theory
- Throwaway question: "What's this duration stuff, anyway?"
- Question got me hired as a research assistant by Finance department in Business school
Investments: Analysis and Management, First Edition Hardcover(1972)
by Jack Clark Francis. McGraw-Hill Book Company
ISBN: 0070217858 ISBN-13: 9780070217850
* The "Sure! I Know Assembly Language" Caper
Offered a job with Finance, conditional on first assignment.
- Take over maintenance of a Fortran program with inline Assembly Language
- Original developer was a senior Computer Science major I knew.
- Gambled that his code was solid. And won in the end.
Got paid 3 times minimum wage ($7.50/hour versus $2.30) to look up and read research papers.
- I'd have done it for free, so this was a sweet gig.
* Other jobs:
- Tutoring math, computer science for food or cash
- Programming jobs
- Teaching assistant jobs for statistics, finance courses
- Security and management of student-run darkroom in Summer months == "reading"
- Typing papers on a typewriter
7. After college, started working in non-life insurance.
* End user computing in actuarial group was in BASIC-Plus on PDP-11s
- Word processing was in DECword or the WPS-8 dedicated machine.
- After first year, moved to department-level PDP-11/44
- For heavy-duty jobs, we also had timesharing access to VAX-11/780
* First project was building a database from mainframe data dump
- EBCDIC data conversion to ASCII led to my education about signed
data fields in COBOL.
- I knew hexadecimal math from my assembly language course
- I'd seen EBCDIC in dumps while writing FORTRAN on CP-V
Data dumps from 9-track to PDP-11/70 led to Overpunch field conversion
http://www.3480-3590-data-conversion.com/article-signed-fields.html
* Note: When you have curly braces at the end of a signed number field,
the brace opens in the direction of the positive or negative end of
the number line.
- Open brace ({): Value ends in zero and has positive sign. Zero < X
- Closing brace (}): Value ends in zero and is negative. Zero > X
* If field ends in A, the value's final digit is 1, and it's positive
- B means positive value that ends with a 2, C is 3, ... I is 9.
- So "00003757D" is $ +375.74.
* If the field ends in J-R, the value is negative and ends in 1-9.
- So "00000255R" is the value $ -25.59.
8. Irony: I was asked to help troubleshoot a program that was crashing
as it was automatically converting the rates and rules manuals away
from Unix with 'nroff' to DECword on RSTS in 1982.
- This may have delayed my adoption of Linux
- Used Unix (Ultrix) in early 1990s to preprocess data for use in OS/2
- Had to move to Win 95 and Win NT for work
****** Skipping the Dark Period of DOS/Windows and OS/2 Computing ******
- Turbo Pascal, APL, PICK, QuickBasic, Visual Basic, Excel with VBA
- Learned SQL dialects, COM, .Net, and scripting languages
More from Dark Period: Less Slackware
8. Gave Linux a try with Quantian Live CD in 2006 (Thanks, Dirk!)
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian.html
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian-tmp.pdf (PDF description)
http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian/quantian_0.7.9.2.quantian.packages.txt
* Used Live CDs to try Debian packages, repair PCs, and do math stuff
- Liked Gnumeric, Python, R, and educational software
- Wiped my Vista laptop in April, 2008 to install Ubuntu full-time
- Music, checking, and photo editing kept me from switching other PCs
9. Tried Ubuntu "Feisty" using WUBI on Windows XP on Racing Cow
* Trouble-free install, mainly because I was on an Ethernet cable
- Tried out Linux software in a risk-free environment to find what I liked
- GNOME 2 was close enough to Windows and Mac, so no problems with UI
- Command line was similar to Ultrix and even to DOS, so not so bad.
* WUBI let me try Ubuntu without having to dual boot or use Live CDs
- Easy to install and remove, like a Windows application
- No messy virtualization setup
- Linux could see and use files on my Windows partition seamlessly
* Ubuntu "Hardy" on "Titanic" (retired Dell Latitude D820 laptop)
- Install was easy, except for wireless networking
- Had to use NDISWRAPPER at first, but everything worked.
* Switched my main home desktop (Racing Cow) in April, 2011
- Just in time for Unity, which would not run on my gear.
- Gnome 2 ran well on my computers, and they choked on Unity and Gnome 3.
- Taste and older machines led me to go distro hopping.
- Dan Lynch of Linux Outlaws pointed me to CrunchBang. Try it.
http://crunchbang.org
9. Other distros I've tried:
* Gentoo (June 2011): http://www.gentoo.org
Note: It is not as super-hard as you've been told.
Installed it in three 4-hour sessions after reading docs on train
- Compiled kernel on first shot
- Added modules for devices I liked, and that recompile worked
- Got X working enough to use a browser and a window manager
- Gave up only because I had not decided on my workflows
- Was afraid to mix GTK and QT or KDE packages at that stage
- Unsure about reversing wrong choices
- Unfamiliar toolkits scared me, although I had no real problems
Conclusion: My problem with Gentoo? Between keyboard and chair.
* Slackware (several times): http://www.slackware.org
Always installs on first try for me, with huge kernel
- Knowing what to do after initial install was the problem here, too
- To remove fear, I updated my 13.37 with all patches by hand
- Manual updates after install took 2 hours, including learning pkgtool
- Using generic or custom kernels is only hard when I'm stupid
* Be sure the drivers to operate your boot disk are compiled in
Conclusion: After hating older versions, it's KDE 4 for the win!
* SlackerMedia book: http://slackermedia.info
Helpful tips on designing workstation around workflows
- Uses SlackBuilds and SlackBuild queues for repeatable configuration
- Gave me idea for groups working on math software-in-progress
- Slackware package format is simple, easy to grasp (for binaries)
- SlackBuilds: close to a universal format for sharing program source
Why Slackware?
- There are SlackBuild scripts for Sage and other packages I like
- Slackware comes with support for TeX for math writing
- SlackerMedia has queues for audio, video, web editing, publishing
Conclusion: SlackerMath is born. Still needs to be fleshed out.
- Slackware distribution-from-scratch based on SlackBuilds
- Set it up as you wish using your own custom queues
- Suggested packages would include Sage, R, Octave, GSL, QuantLib,
Grass GIS, kile, gretl, Tux Racer, euler, gnucap, and others
- Languages: Python with NumPy/SciPy/matplotlib and bindings to
other languages/libraries, Scheme, Perl, Lua, C and Fortran
* Also tried the following, but didn't stay with them
- Slax (www.slax.org)
-
11. Right now:
* Five of our six former Windows computers have switched to Linux.
- "Surfing Cow" decommissioned with CrunchBang as its final O/S.
- "Racing Cow" still going strong with CrunchBang
- Sony FE laptop "White Cloud" running Ubuntu 13.04
- Derringer is my audio editing machine, because it's under 3 lbs.
- Laptop "Titanic" died after a baptism in red wine
Back to life with new keyboard, disk, and name -- "Lazarus"
* Number six ("Dawn Pixie") about to go to a Linux "granny" distro
- Linux Mint or PCLinuxOS (KDE version)
- Need a "granny" distros for generic use by all comers

It seems that telling the tale of how you came to be an active user of Linux or open source software has become the de facto first show topic, so here's my story. I hope this slightly different take on the how-I-came-to-Linux story will be of some interest to you. If you're interested in any of the other things I do you can find me on twitter @kdmurray (https://twitter.com/kdmurray) or on my blog at http://kdmurray.net/.

This is my first HPR, first ever podcast, and first ever attempt at editing any audio. Don't expect greatness.
The banging in the background is my daughter playing with something.
I give a very quick rundown of my introduction to Linux, programming, and tech in general. This is a pretty short show.

I forgot to mention that early on in high school or middle school I enjoyed playing with DOS on an old 386 and that is probably what got my interest and led me to enroll in the High School computer science class that I mention.
I didn't really have anything planned to talk about, I should probably do that next time.

Dick Thomas (xpd259)

How I got in to Linux

Dear listeners, Today I will be briefly explaining my adventure in to tech
and Linux, Starting with getting my first computer a ZX Spectrum to the
current day behemoth and Debian obsession and making youtube videos for fun
and to spead word of FOSS and all things Linux/BSD

The proprietary software device that does not allow printing or saving
information without "key" was called "Design Key" or "Software Dongle" by
myself. This is the brand "we used" (were provided) by design software (CAD
type) kitchen and bathroom design program. (This is the "dongle" device. I do
not care if I mention the proprietary software name. It's not very good and
it's . . . well, proprietary.)http://www.petrotechnics.com/sentinel.html

In his long waited second part Frank continues his Linux story, describing how he used Linux to self-host his website from his guest room and some of the things he learned along the way. Some links mentioned in the show:
Slackware (http://www.slackware.com)Debian (http://www.debian.org)Samba by Example (http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-Guide/)The Slackware Wiki (http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Slackware-FAQ)Linux Questions Linux Forums (http://www.linuxquestions.org/)no-ip dot com dynamic DNS service (http://www.no-ip.com/)

Today our newest host, Frank Bell describes how he started on the road to Linux and some of the things he noticed along the way. In this episode, he goes from a empty computer to one running
Slackware 10.0.

In his first podcast Brotherred talks about how he got into GNU/Linux after seeing a website powered by Linux in approx. 2001.
Bought RedHat 9 with PC magazine.
Not all Linux experience was rosy.
Still loves GNU/Linux for playing games, download torrents, and audio/video editing.

After years of using Unix, Mac, and Windows I finally converted my two Windows computers to Linux for real.
The journey into Linux started with not being successful at writing a startup script for Linux. A few years later I discovered some Linux love when writing a driver that would make the keyboard LED lights blink the morse code of the letters being typed. A year ago I did a few virtual Linux installations (archLinux, Debian) in VirtualBox to test out some Cloud Computing stuff.
Before Christmas 2010, I was considering contributing to the KDE project and installed Kubuntu as well as Ubuntu.
This year, because I am going to the LinuxFest NorthWest (and I am going to have a table there for HackerPublicRadio) I had to install Linux on my old Windows Laptop. I also converted my Samsung Q1 Ultra Tablet computer from WindowsXP to Ubuntu.
Both conversions were successful, but a few problems had to be solved for which https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu is a great place to go and find or get answers.

BTW: If you're going to http://www.linuxfestnorthwest.org/ please come and say "hi" at the HPR table and if you can help out at the table please let me know code.cruncher_hpr at yahoo ca.

Announcement

Book Review

The book is Badge Of Infamy by Lester Del Rey and read by Steven Wilson. It is available from podiobooks.com. The direct url is
http://www.podiobooks.com/title/badge-of-infamy.
From podiobooks.com: "Daniel Feldman was a doctor once. He made the mistake of saving a friend's life in violation of Medical Lobby rules. Now, he's a pariah, shunned by all, forbidden to touch another patient. But things are more loose on Mars. There, Doc Feldman is welcomed by the colonists, even as he's hunted by the authorities. But, when he discovers a Martian plague may soon wipe out humanity on two planets, the authorities begin hunting him for a different reason altogether."

Linux-specific content starts at the 15min mark. Until then is all the
computer geekery that led up to my first linux exposure. Feel free
to skip forward if you don't want to hear about old systems like the
Commodores, TI, 5.25" floppies, FidoNet BBS, etc.